The Guest House

This being human is a guest house,
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture,
Still, treat each guest honorably,
He may be cleaning you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Poem by Rumi

The Lady's Yes a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"Yes!" I answered you last night;
"No!" this morning, Sir, I say!
Colours, seen by candle-light,
Will not look the same by day.

When the tabors played their best,
Lamps above, and laughs below --
Love me sounded like a jest,
Fit for Yes or fit for No!

Call me false, or call me free --
Vow, whatever light may shine,
No man on your face shall see
Any grief for change on mine.

Yet the sin is on us both --
Time to dance is not to woo --
Wooer light makes fickle troth --
Scorn of me recoils on you !

Learn to win a lady's faith
Nobly, as the thing is high;
Bravely, as for life and death --
With a loyal gravity.

Lead her from the festive boards,
Point her to the starry skies,
Guard her, by your truthful words,
Pure from courtship's flatteries.

By your truth she shall be true --
Ever true, as wives of yore --
And her Yes, once said to you,
SHALL be Yes for evermore.

Outside the Minnesota State Line PART 3 Recipes for disaster and all that jazz, as performed on a rusty tin whistle

It was a difficult few months, finding himself outside the minnesota state line with nothing to show for himself. I mean, whilst within the borders of that hospitable state, he felt lulled into a quazi comfort zone. What prompted that delusion to rear itself from his soul to sustain that reaction, we will never know.

Be that as it may, now, at his peril, the lulling had terminated, abruptly, or so it seemed.

He found himself in the midst of a storm without hope of a door upon which one dare dream of collapse. The poor dear.

Instead, he found himself wondering the byways and straitways of life outside the minnesota state line, with only his collection of recipes, and a rusty tin whistle, to keep him company.

(yes, let us pause here to reflect upon the crafty hilar perfectly tangled into that last run on sentence.)